


Compensator

by otter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cars, Flash Fic, Gen, Injury, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles hates Derek's car. Derek has more important things to worry about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compensator

**Author's Note:**

> For deciduousness who prompted: _Stiles the first time he gets to ride in the Camaro._ I didn't go for the first time since I'm pretty sure that would've been the scene in "Wolf's Bane" and I couldn't get my head around the logistics, but I went with the general theme. This is 100% flashfic, not beta'ed, not even re-read to see if it's coherent. SORRY.

Stiles isn't really a car guy.

He loves his Jeep, but it's not like he painstakingly rebuilt her with his own two hands. He tries to take good care of her, for a number of reasons — because the Jeep belonged to his mom, because his dad would actually kill him if he got into a wreck, because he's even less coordinated on a bike than he is walking — but his version of care isn't really hands-on, it's more of a cash exchange with an extortionate mechanic. He's never cared much about the roar of a well-tuned engine and he'd rather just watch _The Fast and the Furious_ than get his hands around a wrench. His dad isn't much help; his knowledge of auto repair stops at changing a flat tire, and his active interest in it barely extends to checking the dipstick. When Stiles finally got his license and his dad grudgingly handed him the keys to the Jeep, the full extent of his useful advice was, "She grinds in second. If you crash her you won't be driving again until you're forty. Understood?"

So Stiles is generally just cautious and uninterested, until werewolves become a thing and he has to worry about things like Derek bleeding on his seats and Scott denting up the fenders in the midst of brand new emotional control problems.

He figures he's got Derek pegged as a gearhead, though, because nobody could possibly drive a car like his and not actually care about cars. Derek at very least cares about the interiors, because right now Stiles is bleeding on them and Derek seems overall pretty pissed off.

"Goddammit, Stiles," he mutters under his breath, throwing the Camaro into another corner like he's personally offended by gravity.

"I know," Stiles says — well, slurs. He thinks he should probably take his right hand off the edge of the seat because it's kind of soaked in blood, but from the driver's seat Derek can't possibly see the hand prints Stiles is leaving on the leather, and anyway, Stiles needs it braced there to try to keep himself upright because Derek is a seriously hazardous driver. "M'trying not to bleed on your—" he forgets the word he's looking for, goes with, "—stuff. Seat. Thing."

"I don't give a shit about the upholstery, Stiles," Derek says, and oh, that's the word Stiles was looking for, _upholstery._ Holstery that is up.

"Of course you do," Stiles says. Derek takes another corner so fast and hard that it rocks Stiles against the window. He just goes with it, limp like a rag doll, leaves a very obvious smear of blood from his head against the glass. Because he has a head injury. That is a thing that he has. Derek is totally going to make him get the car detailed. "You care about your car."

"I care about your stupid thick skull," Derek snaps.

"Stop bouncing it off your car, then," Stiles complains, as the car jolts to a sudden stop and he's thrown first against the seatbelt, then against the seatback. "I'm fragile and human and I get whiplash, Derek. Derek?"

Derek's not in the car anymore. The driver's door is hanging open and there's a soft chime going off like a Stiles-got-blood-on-the-car alert. Stiles just stares at the open door dumbly, looking beyond to the expense of night-washed parking lot and flood lights and an American flag rustling lazily in the breeze. He can't for the life of him figure out where the hell Derek went.

He says, "Derek?" again, but then Derek's already there, has the door on Stiles' side open and is leaning over him to unsnap the seatbelt. His mouth is really close to Stiles' mouth but he doesn't seem to notice, which is typical. "Our mouths are really close together," Stiles points out, helpfully. "In case you wanted to, like, do something."

"What I'd like to do is get you out of the car and into the emergency room," Derek says, but he looks at Stiles while he's talking, looks at Stiles' mouth like he's thinking about things he could do _other_ than whatever it is he just said.

Derek loops his arm around Stiles' shoulders and Stiles is thinking this is it, he's totally going to kiss me, that's practically a yawn-and-stretch move right there, but then Derek just hauls him up out of the car, and then there are a bunch of other people there making a variety of annoying noises and the moment is seriously gone.

"It's because I got blood on your car, isn't it?" Stiles says, mournfully.

Derek stares at him like he's an idiot. "I really don't care about the car," he says, while he's man-handling Stiles onto a gurney. "I _hate_ that car."

"Really?" Stiles is self-aware enough to realize he should stop talking. He's not in possession of all of his— the things he needs to think. Those. "I hate that car too! We are bros who are... car-hating. Car-hating bros."

"Why do _you_ hate the car?" Derek asks, looking kind of bewildered. He jogs along with the gurney while the other people are rolling it inside, but he has to move back to make room for some guy who is doing something to Stiles' arm. Which is good because Stiles is bleeding _everywhere._

"It's little— you know. Muscle cars." Stiles waves his other hand, tries to hold up a finger, but somebody else just pins it back down, trying to get a needle into his arm, and he's not sure that any of that made any sense. He thinks he should probably simplify his argument. "Thought maybe that meant you had a little dick. You know." Somebody makes a strangled noise and he finally tears his eyes away from Derek, whose eyebrows have climbed up to make a new home in his hair. Mrs. McCall is looking down at him with an expression that's half worried and half something else entirely, like she's about to choke on her disbelief. She looks like that around Stiles a lot. "I hate Derek's car," he tells her, in confidence. "Derek why do _you_ hate your car?"

Derek shrugs, looks away, looks back. He stops moving with the gurney, because somebody's keeping him from going any further, but he says, "It was Peter's, before the fire. And he was _definitely_ compensating for something."

Stiles laughs all the way to the operating room.


End file.
